Distribution

Southern England, with records from South Devon, Dorset (Mortimer 1908; The Natural History Museum London), South Hampshire (Else 1995; M. Edwards, pers. comm.), East Sussex, East Kent (Butterfield 1921), Berkshire, Surrey (D B Baker, pers. comm.), London (Perkins 1917) and Essex (Beaumont 1903; P. Harvey, pers. comm.). A rare species with few recent records. (The record for Yorkshire by J.T. Burn (1975) is based on a misidentification of Nomada flavoguttata.). Widely distributed in Europe. It has also been reported from Japan.

Status (in Britain only)

Listed as Endangered (RDB1) by Shirt (1987) and Falk (1991).

Habitat

It shares the same habitat as its Andrena host: for example, open woodland and grassland.

Flight period

Univoltine; early May to June.

Pollen collected

This species is cleptoparasitic and so does not collect pollen

Nesting biology

A cleptoparasite of the mining bee Andrena labiata (Perkins 1919a, Butterfield 1921, Westrich 1989), though considerably rarer than this species and absent from most of its nesting sites.